Marriage equality? What’s that? The right of any adult to marry any adult they please? Brothers, sisters, mothers, children, parents, same sex, opposite sex, group sex.

*sigh* I think someone's slippery slope is greased with bullshit. I'm going to do you the courtesy of assuming you're merely hideously ill-informed rather than trolling, but please provide a sourced direct link to one marriage equality advocate anywhere advocating any such thing.

Every single one of you who offers the marriage equality argument (and the argument that if two people love each other then…) all advocate for such a thing. It is called the rules of logic – your argument logically entails this.

I've lost count of the ad hominem responses - you lot really like to level insults and engage in psycho-analysis rather than respond don't you?

If your argument is that grown adults should be able to have their relationships recognised then by what non-arbitrary and irrational means do you draw a line between same sex unrelated relationships and whatever sex combo polygamous or incestuous relationships, etc?

All are grown adults, all are in committed relationships, all love each other, all consent, all pay their taxes - it meets all your criteria. How you can you deny it and in the same breath level accusations against me?

I am being consistent, I am taking your argument and applying it consistently. Your argument sucks as it entails everything from incest through to necrophilic marriages but that is because you can't reason - not because of anything I did - I just applied it consistently.

By "religion", I meant the faith itself, a person's spirituality, not the organisation. By "respect", I mean that one should offer personal respect for a person who is presumably intelligent who sincerely believes something other than what one believes personally. I do not mean to demand formal, legal, constitutional etc recognition. As far as the institutions and their representatives are concerned, then of course paedophile priests should be pursed and prosecuted, and the Vatican, in covering up these crimes and protecting the perpetrators across the world and for decades (centuries...) has itself committed a crime against humanity. We can throw the Inquisition in as well, but that is an entirely different argument - again, I'm referring only to personal spirituality.

And ironically, it's not something I feel much of myself.

I hope that clarifies things - I don't think that we're actually in disagreement.

No, what you did was a rather crude version of the same old “OMFG, let the gays marry and it’s incestuous polygamy (with farm animals) by lunchtime” same old. I’m sorry to tell you this, but the House could go into extreme urgency tomorrow, and a simple majority of 62 MPs could vote to repeal Part 3 & Schedule 2 of the Marriage Act.. (I think you'd have to have to deal with marital zoophilia separately, and repeal Sections 143, 144 & !42A of the Crimes Act first.) Let the (literal) mother-fucking marital fiesta, begin!

The only problem with that deliciously perverse slippery slope hypothetical is that it doesn’t add anything useful to a reality-based policy debate -- there is no political or public appetite to take a ride on that slippery slope. Again, can you point me towards a first-hand link of any marriage equality advocate who is itching to go shopping for their harem at the nearest pet store?

Scalia, a basic lesson. For what it's worth - logic and good faith demand that one does not misrepresent one's opponents' arguments, otherwise you are arguing in bad faith and have no cause for complaint when your own claims are dismissed and your character is questioned.

No-one argued for incest, necrophilia or bestiality and your claim on that regard is dishonest, stupid and offensive.

The "non-arbitrary" aspect is knowing, informed consent. Cadavers, animals, children, mineral formations and packs of corn flakes are not capable of the kind of cognition required. That is the defining line. The old "slippery slope of sin" argument is false and your use of it is indicates either naivete or dishonesty.

We are not having a "logical" argument with you because you yourself are not employing logic or honesty.

You have no right to complain of being treated rudely here when you yourself waded in and immediately indulged in insulting misrepresentations and then had the gall to complain that we don't love you enough.

Show some courtesy and good faith or bugger off to The Standard or Kiwiblog.

My argument took informed consent from a position of equality as its basis and should anyone think that that is something self-evident that simply needed articulating, that is not the case at all. The word "rape" comes from a root meaning "to steal", ie. the victim was not the woman violated, but the father or husband whose property was taken from him. The experience of the woman was not recognised. Until as late as the early 1980s, in England IIRC, a husband could not be convicted of raping his wife because, logically, consistently, he could not steal his own property. Others here will know a lot more about the law regarding rape in various countries...

In any case, the requirement for consent as the basis for legitimacy in a relationship is something of an historical novelty.